


Lucky Number Thirteen

by Kira OHara (KiraOHara)



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Community: hd_smoochfest, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-06-25
Updated: 2013-06-25
Packaged: 2017-12-16 02:51:32
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 16,678
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/856929
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KiraOHara/pseuds/Kira%20OHara
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>With a serial killer tormenting victims with horrible manifestations of the Dark Arts, Vice Head Auror Harry Potter is forced into an unlikely partnership with one Scholar Draco Malfoy.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Lucky Number Thirteen

**Author's Note:**

  * For [appleling](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=appleling).



> **Author LJ Name:** KiraOHara  
>  **Prompter:** Appleling  
>  **Prompt Number:** 92  
>  **Title:** Lucky Number Thirteen  
>  **Pairing(s):** Harry/Draco, mentioned Ron/Hermione, apparent Pansy/???  
>  **Summary:** With a serial killer tormenting victims with horrible manifestations of the Dark Arts, Vice Head Auror Harry Potter is forced into an unlikely partnership with one Scholar Draco Malfoy.  
>  **Rating:** NC-17  
>  **Disclaimer:** All Harry Potter characters herein are the property of J.K. Rowling and Bloomsbury/Scholastic. No copyright infringement is intended.  
>  **Warning(s):** (I swear it ended up not being nearly as dark as these would suggest.) Semi-graphic descriptions of gruesome offscreen deaths of minor OCs, one semi-graphic description of onscreen OC death, possible/seeming dub-con(?), some blood, description of temporary creeping insanity. ...Also frotting wall sex (it didn't seem appropriate to group that with the others, haha).  
>  **Epilogue compliant?** Nope, not at all, as requested. :3  
>  **Word Count:** 16,621  
>  **Author's Notes:** I started plotting a dark!fic with not-so-Golden-Boy!Harry, and somehow Draco invaded while I was writing and made it humorous-with-a-dark-edge instead. I swear, I only torment him because he does it to me first (I think he likes it). I suffered at first due to vague notes followed by projects being due followed by finals and me going, "...What the hell was I talking about, srsly?" But I think I probably made it more interesting than before. :D A big thank you to M and K for helping push me to write and finish this. ♥ I need to thank my fiance for being awesome and bouncing ideas with me to get me started. And a huge thank you to T for the quick beta. You rock. ♥ Also, as ever, thank you to the loveliest of mods for being awesome and patient and amazing and the best ever and putting up with me for being the worst ever. ^^; ♥♥♥ to you, ladies  
>  **Additional Note:** The idea of Scholars/Masters in this story is a lot like people with Masters/Doctorates. Draco holds one Mastery already, but since he is currently in the process of earning a second one he is referred to as 'Scholar Malfoy' instead of 'Master Malfoy.' I hope that makes sense? X3

With the first, it became a case – odd in its own way, but not uncommonly so.  With the third, it became a pattern.  With the fifth, it became a conundrum.  With the seventh, it became a media frenzy.  With the ninth, it became priority one.  With the eleventh, it became the problem of Vice Head Auror Harry Potter.

 

Two weeks later, the twelfth body was found.

 

 

.o0O0o.

 

"Please, Martha.  Isn't there anything you can give me?"

 

Draco stopped walking and cocked his head, recognition of that voice drawing his attention from the book he'd been reading.  He told himself that even if it hadn't been Potter – a pleading Potter – that the desperate tone would have caught his interest anyway.  He didn't quite believe himself, but no matter.  Stepping quietly, he angled himself so that he could just barely peek around the corner of the hall he was in, staying away from the wall so as to have plausible deniability if he were discovered.  He'd learned over the years that being implicated was easier to talk his way out of than being caught.

 

Potter was wearing the ridiculous red robes of his profession, hands on his hips and shoulders hunched dejectedly.  Opposite him was Martha Oliver, one of Draco's colleagues, looking sympathetic as she gave his arm a comforting pat.  She was a good decade older than them, short with a bun of flyaway brown hair and a tan that had never faded from her years of field work.  Draco adored her in equal parts for her bountiful knowledge of historical spellwork and the fact that she didn't treat him any differently because of his part in the Great British War.  It helped that she and her family had been traipsing around half a world away before and during said war.

 

"I don't know who else to ask.  We know the curses were cast by the same person, but we have no idea how they're doing it.  Most of the Curse-breakers and Healers we work with either have specialisations with artefact-curses or long-term curses that they can cure. Nothing like this."  Potter's frustration was palpable – understandably so, if Draco had guessed the correct reason.  While he usually avoided newspapers like the plague, his mother had been sure to warn him to keep to himself more than usual because of some serial killer with a nasty arsenal of Dark Magic.  Readily agreeing to her wishes wasn't a difficult decision, regardless of his professional intrigue.  He wasn't about to make himself a target.

 

"I think one of the other resident Scholars here at the university might be able to help you," Martha suggested hesitantly.  "He just did his second thesis on how culture has affected the definition and usage of the Dark Arts, and how it's changed over the last several centuries."  Draco nearly tore the pages of his book.

 

No.  She had not.

 

"He's very polite, and has always been helpful to me when I'm stuck."

 

No, Martha. No.

 

"How do I get in contact with him?"

 

You don't, Potter.

 

"Scholar Draco Malfoy.  He's taking a break from teaching classes for the summer to work on a third thesis in his second area of Mastery."

 

Draco pinched the bridge of his nose as if pained and just barely smothered a whimper.

 

"Er."  Well, at least Potter sounded awkward.  "We sort of have a…history.  A not very happy one."

 

Draco just barely kept from scoffing.  Talk about putting it lightly.

 

"Just bring him the biggest caramel macchiato you can find with extra cream, whipped cream, an extra shot of espresso, and a lot of extra sugar.  A little bit of cinnamon, too.  All will be well."  Draco could practically hear her grin.

 

"Oh, you bitch," he hissed, then remembered he was eavesdropping and fled down a random hallway to avoid getting caught.

 

 

.o0O0o.

 

Two days later, Draco was grading the last of his students' final examination essays and silently commiserating with his dead godfather over why he must have constantly wanted to maim his students.  Dear Merlin, did they never learn how to write?  Then again, maybe they knew how terrible of a job they had done.  Five of them had come in to try to bribe him with baked goods already.  Not that it worked, but who doesn't like biscuits?

 

Draco was crossing out another misspelling that altered the entire meaning of a sentence when he heard another tentative knock.  He smirked, wondering who would be next and what they would bring him.  If it was a colleague or friend they would have either knocked more forcefully or just barged in, depending on their temperaments.  He did his best to smother the smirk into what Daphne ridiculously called his 'stern teacher face' as he called, "Come in."

 

And half a moment later regretted it.  He had completely forgotten about his plan to lock his door and pretend he wasn't there on the off chance Potter would stop by. Well, shit.

 

Draco tried not to sigh in defeat as Potter swept into his office in a swirl of no-nonsense red robes.  "And what might you be doing here, Vice Head Auror?" he asked carefully.  It was best to not sound so accommodating as a 'how may I help you?'  Potter might get ideas.  Like of Draco actually helping.

 

"I was referred to you by a mutual friend."  Not anymore she's not.  "She said you might be able to be of assistance on a case I'm working on.  The DMLE is willing to compensate the Masters and Scholars who prove helpful to us with our work.  I was hoping we could discuss this over coffee or tea."  Potter said it all with a bland smile on his face, but Draco could tell by the way he held up the two to-go cups with a flourish that he had carefully rehearsed this.

 

Draco was never forgiving Martha. Ever. The second cup was labelled as Earl Grey, probably with the copious amounts of sugar he usually heaped in it.  Damn that woman.  It wouldn't matter if he said he didn't want the coffee now; there was a back-up.  At least he would get the amusement of watching Potter have to drink the one he didn't pick.

 

Quirking one eyebrow, Draco contained the irritated huff he wanted to give into a put-upon sigh. He set his grading aside.  "The coffee, if you will.  I will need that much caffeine to deal with you after these essays."

 

Potter had the nerve to chuckle quietly as he handed over the peace offering (read: bribe) and sat down in one of the chairs on the opposite side of the desk.  Draco took a tentative sip, torn between hoping it was awful so he could reject it and really, really loving his caffeine.  It was perfect.  Damn it.  "You did your homework," he conceded.

 

"I've always done my homework when I've seen the benefit of it," Potter responded lightly.

 

"Very Slytherin of you."  Draco had meant it to be sarcastic.  He did not like the grin Potter shot him.  He really did not.

 

 

.o0O0o.

 

A few more minutes of stilted small talk later, Harry had finally produced the shrunken case files from an inner pocket of his robes.  Twelve bodies had been found so far, each as gruesome as the last.  It was possible that there were more, since one of the bodies hadn't even been found for more than a week after death.

 

"Gavivi Emery," Harry said as he handed over the first case file, "was a successful businessman who owned his own importing/exporting shop.  That's about all that could be nicely said about him.  He was ruthless and known for valuing his profits over both his customers and employees.  Unmarried.  No children.Estranged from his family.  A few rivals, no known actual friends.  Tended not to go many places simply because it meant spending his money.

 

"He was found about eight months ago by a goblin who noticed blood seeping out of a vault and a rotten smell.  The medical examiner says that he gorged himself to the point of bursting with coins, gems, jewellery, and whatever other objects that were small enough to swallow.  He also managed to insert a few into other orifices.  Then, an avalanche of more coins and costly items rushed over him and slowly crushed him to death over the span of several hours."

 

Draco grimaced at the matter-of-fact description as he flipped through the case file.  The face wasn't familiar, but he'd heard of Emery Exotic Exports.  He quickly bypassed the photographs of the crime scene.  He'd likely have to come back to them eventually to look for clues about the Dark Arts spells utilised, but it was one thing to have researched depictions in dusty old books and quite another to see the real thing in glossy full colour. There was a section speculating on the time frames and spells, but all of it was inconclusive.

 

"Janelle Everett," Potter said, picking up another of the case files.  "Third victim.  Model and songstress, very popular.  Also well-known for her vanity and her perpetuation of the 'only thin is beautiful' ideal.  Doting family, two rich ex-husbands, a long string of innumerable other suitors, no children.  Her entourage was useless for information, either wailing pathetically or waxing poetic about how amazing they thought she was."  Draco had to turn a laugh into a cough at the sight of the annoyed face Potter was making.

 

"Her agent found her in a pool of blood after she missed a photo shoot.  The medical examiner said that her throat had constricted to the point that she became unable to swallow food or liquids, relaxing only when she would begin to vomit uncontrollably.  Severe weakness set in, which would have prevented her from calling for help – possibly due to a mixture of prior malnourishment coupled with the curse and the dehydration from vomiting.  She eventually managed to burn out her throat and bleed to death."

 

Draco nodded, looking over the file with a sneer.  When he was younger he might have laughed at her behaviour, but he'd grown up a lot from being a snotty, spoiled teenager.  He remembered hearing from Millicent that the woman had made her cry when she sought out an autograph.  Millie might not be the prettiest woman, Draco would admit, but she had been confident enough about herself and Gregory thought she'd hung the moon. Draco had refused to ever support the singer again after that incident.

 

Still, she didn't deserve to die like that.

 

Potter gave a rundown of a few more case files, then sighed as he handed the next one over.  "Wilhelmina Abigail Dempsey, our seventh victim.  She's the one that caused the media to catch on and whip themselves into a frenzy over the case."  Draco frowned at the file.  He knew of Matron Dempsey.  His mother often had tea with her daughter and had tried to present one of her granddaughters as a marriageable prospect before Draco had shot down the idea of a bride entirely.

 

"Hers is – to date – the only death with known witnesses.  Her husband was across the room reading the paper and she had just sat down to tea with one of her young nieces when the curse, or curses, took effect.  She immediately began to choke as if her tea had been poisoned, then started yelling and screaming unintelligibly while running around the room and barrelling into things – furniture, display cases, walls – until she was bloodied.  Before they could snap out of their shock and restrain her, she had Apparated to Diagon Alley during the busiest time of day and managed to Splinch herself badly.  She continued her rampage there: running down the lane, crashing through a display window, crying and begging for help the whole time.  Some Aurors managed to corral her, but dared not touch her for fear of a violent reaction or of whatever was affecting her jumping to them.  She eventually collapsed into convulsions while spitting up blood and died before a medical extraction team could arrive."  Potter's voice was tight with emotion, anger and helplessness battling across his features.

 

"We tested everything she had touched from her chair to her teacup; it all came back negative for traces of Dark Magic. The house-elf who had served her had doted on her since she was young and was devastated.  Her husband and niece were beside themselves, and neither had a trace of Dark Magic anywhere on them. The wards around their home showed no other people had been present."

 

Potter's features pulled into a grim frown.  "She'd apparently been known as one of those tough old birds who thought that women needed to be internally self-sufficient but externally quiet and subservient.  She looked with great disdain on anyone who caused a scene for any reason whatsoever."  Draco's jaw clenched as Potter locked eyes with him.  "Seeing a pattern?"

 

Draco nodded quietly, eyes darting around unfocussed as he lined up the facts.  "So, while nothing about the curses themselves is similar, the intent behind them seems to be? Taking whatever the person stood for and turning it around on them?"

 

Potter nodded.  "There's also a degraded, fragmented magical signature that we managed to detect on some of them."

 

"Fragmented?  As if someone had tried to erase it?"

 

"That, or that they are severely damaged by the Dark Arts they have practiced.Or possibly a combination of the two.  We can't be sure until we find the perpetrator."  Draco made a noise of acknowledgement, motioning for Potter to continue.  "But as far as we can tell, the only other thing all of the victims have had in common is being pureblooded with a good social reputation.

 

"No set time-table for the murders – the time between them has been anywhere from days to just over a month.  They aren't speeding up or slowing down, which is more characteristic of most serial killers.  Our theory is that there must be a certain amount of time needed to prepare some of the curses or to find an opportunity to cast them."

 

Potter pushed up his glasses to massage the bridge of his nose before continuing.  "None of the victims had been known to frequent the same places.  They weren't friends, and only a few of them even knew of one another.  Not all of them ran in the same social circles, and we haven't found any friends or acquaintances they'd all had in common.Just one had actually been a Death Eater and only five of the twelve belonged to families who were even suspected of Death Eater activity.  Four of them hadn't even been in the country during the war, so that's an unlikely motive but we aren't counting it out."  He gave a gusty sigh and peered at Draco wearily.  "Questions?"

 

"What is it exactly that you're hoping I can help you with?"  As intriguing as the case was, Draco remembered his promise to his mother to lay low.  Maybe he could pass it on to someone else…

 

"We need help identifying what curses were used and if they are somehow related.  We don't have a single thing on file that matches them entirely.  There are some minor curses and hexes that have similar properties, but none that are as potent or formidable as these.  If we can find a common denominator, then it's possible we can trace it," he said dubiously.  "Perhaps we can trace the spells themselves, though that is fairly difficult.  It would be easier to narrow things down if we could figure out how they were being cast.  Maybe we can even find a way to counteract them if we come across another living victim," he finished quietly, that look of angry helplessness back.

 

Draco stared.  He knew he was staring, and he knew Potter knew he was staring.  But it seemed as if Potter understood that Draco needed a moment to evaluate.  If he chose to publicly help he would be opening himself up as a target.  However, few others would be as qualified as he was with his Mastery in Magical Theory and ongoing Scholarship in Historical Magic.

 

Sighing once, he gave a quick nod of his assent.  And if he enjoyed the grateful, relieved smile that Potter beamed at him, he felt he was entitled to that.

 

 

.o0O0o.

 

Potter had given him another day to tie up his responsibilities to the university concerning completing his grading and closing out his grade-books.  A formal contract had arrived that evening promising remuneration for his time and services.  The Auror had arrived again first thing the following morning with caffeine-bribes in hand.

 

"Are these to be counted as part of my remuneration?" Draco asked with a mocking grin.

 

Potter snorted into his tea.  "No, this is my hope that I can keep you civil if you're not a morning person."

 

Draco tried to glare, but a reluctant chuckle escaped anyway.  He did manage a glare when Potter sent him a mocking grin in return.  Arse.  He took a sip of his coffee to keep from smiling back.

 

Potter had brought a file full of information on curses that had similarities to those used on the victims.  While Draco was certain that he would already know any and all of them, he was thankful to have a list on hand for reference just in case something slipped his mind.  He had brought several of his books on Magical Theory, dealing with altering and strengthening existing spells and also with enchantments that could affect one's magical signature.

 

They split the work and set to it in a surprisingly comfortable silence.  Draco kept sneaking looks over the edge of a book or a page of the file, curious about this serious and studious Potter.  Much had apparently changed for the other man since the days when he had left all of the fact-finding to Granger.  Draco snorted a quiet laugh when Potter broke away for lunch, mind obviously still on the case as he waved and mumbled a distracted farewell.

 

Potter had raised judgemental eyebrows at Draco's current cup of sweet, caffeinated goodness after they'd reconvened.  Draco arched one eyebrow back at him.  "What?" he demanded.

 

"You drink that much caffeine even in the afternoon?"  The look on his face said that he believed Draco was clearly mental.  He took a sip of the herbal tea he'd switched to – much to Draco's surprise – while continuing to stare.

 

"I love coffee. Tea is nice, but I like something I can make a bit sweeter when researching," Draco said plainly.

 

"What about decaf?"

 

Draco snorted contemptuously.  "There is a time and place for decaf: never and in the bin."

 

Potter had laughed and shaken his head as if Draco was even more mental than he'd previously thought.  Draco rolled his eyes and managed to keep from sinking to the level of sticking his tongue out at the other man.  Barely.

 

A few hours later, Draco was drawn out of his reading when he heard Potter make a quiet noise of distress.  He watched as the other man fidgeted and rubbed at the hand he'd been turning pages with before taking out a small bottle from one of his myriad pockets.  Draco felt his eyebrows creep up his forehead in disbelief when it turned out to be hand lotion.

 

"Really, Potter?  And here I was beginning to think that maybe you weren't vain, and then you go and fret about moisturising?" Draco scoffed.

 

An embarrassed flush crept up Potter's neck as he glared at Draco.  He clenched his jaw and swallowed heavily, as if keeping from lashing back.  Draco realised that he had actually hit a rather raw nerve when the other man closed his eyes, took a shaky inhale, and let it out with a resigned huff.  When Potter opened his eyes again, it was only to stare down at the book that was clenched tightly in his hands.  Draco briefly worried that maybe he had just ruined this entire venture with one ill-advised jab.

 

Then, Potter spoke.  His voice was quiet, in a haunted sort of way that had Draco freezing in apprehensive anxiety from the first word.  "Four years ago, I was hit with a dehydration curse.  They figured out a way to counteract it before it completely desiccated my body, but the damage was not as easily reversed."  A small, involuntary shudder passed over him.  "I can still remember how tight and thin and papery my skin felt during the recovery.  I can't–" he cut himself off, looking nauseated.

 

"I used to panic when my skin started to feel dry, like some part of my mind was convinced it was happening all over again and I was going to die. The lotion…helps," he said awkwardly.  "I try to keep myself tan, as well, because sunburn trips it just as badly – especially if it's severe enough to peel."  He mumbled the last part, as if unable to say it loudly even in the small, private office, but Draco heard him well enough.

 

"The worst part was that it was a well-established curse.  Had been around for centuries.  But it took them nineteen hours to find someone who knew the counter-curse.  I always think that maybe if I had known, if I had learned about this sort of thing, I could have counteracted it myself.  Maybe then I wouldn't be…" he trailed off, making a vague motion with his hands that Draco thought he understood anyway.  When he raised his eyes to shrug and give Draco a sad smile, the smile part of it didn't quite reach his eyes.

 

Draco winced and sighed.  Well, now that I feel like a complete arse…  "I had no idea," he said lamely.  He felt like he should apologise, perhaps, but he still wasn't very good at that sort of thing.  And perhaps if he started apologising to Potter then he might not stop with just this instance.  He knew better than anyone the misdeeds that lay in his past.

 

Potter shrugged again awkwardly.  "It's okay.  I know now.  It'll never happen to anyone else so long as I can help it."  Though his voice was still soft, there was a sense of resolution there that caught Draco's notice.  He found himself studying Potter more than the books on his desk for the rest of the day.

 

When Potter finally made to leave for the evening, Draco reached out to shake his hand.  Potter smiled as he returned the shake, though an incredulous look took its place when Draco recommended a different lotion to him.

 

Draco smirked.  "What?  I readily admit that I'm vain," he said flippantly.  It was worth it when Potter shook his head and laughed the whole way down the hallway as he left.

 

 

.o0O0o.

 

"What does being a Vice Head Auror actually entail?"

 

Harry looked up from the contrast he was trying to make between the victim's wounds and a spell with a certain magical enhancement.  He had a feeling it wasn't panning out.  "Hmm?  What do you mean?"

 

Malfoy rolled his eyes and Harry fought from doing it right back at him.  "I meant what is it that you actually do?  I'm fairly certain the Head Auror doesn't do field research like you're doing, but you don't seem to need to work patrols like most Aurors."  Harry liked to think he was getting used to Draco's odd questions when they came out of the blue, but that didn't stop them from blindsiding him occasionally.  He'd been doing it more and more often as the week went on.

 

Harry cracked his neck as he decided how to word the explanation.  "There are five of us with the title of Vice Head Auror.  We're all Star Aurors – meaning we have exceptionally high solve rates – and are considered the top in the department.  We're given a certain amount of authority that is only superseded by the Head Auror and the Minister."  He paused, squinting as he thought.  "We all have the rank of detective, and still do casework like most Senior Aurors would.  However, all of our cases are high-priority or high-profile – or both.

 

"We also do a lot of departmental organising and consulting for other Auror's cases.  It's meant to help groom us to one day hold the position of Head Auror."  Harry kept himself from making a face at that.  To him, it always sounded kind of…terrible, when phrased that way.

 

"So you're competing with these others for the Head Auror position?" Malfoy asked, sounding intrigued.

 

Harry did scrunch up his face in distaste at that.  "Merlin, no.  If you actually look back over the years, you'll notice that those who held the position of Head Auror were always old, had a limiting injury, or eventually transferred into some other area of politics.  Martin Greyson is getting up there in years and will probably be the next one in the cycle when our current Head retires."  Harry smiled, happy for the elder man.  "Personally, I'm hoping there's another half-dozen people or so who'll go there before I'm ready to cut myself out of field work entirely," he said with a laugh.

 

Malfoy made a thoughtful noise in his throat that Harry wasn't quite sure how to interpret.  He was staring again, with his head tipped slightly to the side and eyes narrowed in assessment, as if Harry was some sort of code he could decipher if given long enough.  And that he was willing to take that time.  Harry wasn't sure whether to feel awkward or honoured about that.

 

"You wouldn't be interested in going into politics, like Shacklebolt?"

 

"No."  Harry gave a slightly theatrical shudder.  "I'll be honest, some political debate can get very interesting.  If things had been a bit different, I might have been interested in political reform.  But, well…after having to deal with Fudge, Umbridge, and Scrimgeour all trying to rail against me and say I was trying to 'steal their power' before I was even an adult," he paused, feeling his lip curl in distaste, "it sort of left me with a sour taste in my mouth for anything involving the political arena."

 

Malfoy snorted, and Harry was once again left wondering if Malfoy was laughing with him or at him.  He kind of hoped this amicability would last long enough for him to take the time to figure it out.  After this case is over, perhaps.  I can't afford to let myself get distracted right now.

 

So as Harry went back to research, he pretended not to notice Malfoy's rather obvious staring.  Because thinking about that would be a very, very good way to get distracted.  He did allow himself one more thought on the matter, though: I wonder how he'd react if I still kept bringing him coffee.

 

 

.o0O0o.

 

A week in, Draco had been entirely certain they wouldn't find any information of use to the case this way – even if they scoured the vast libraries of both the university and his private collection.

 

So instead, he had taken to appraising Potter.

 

He had grown – matured – into what even Draco would acknowledge as a good man.  As much as he seemed to still wear his heart on his sleeve, there were glimpses here and there that he could keep his cards close when it would better serve his needs.  He didn't get angry as easily, but there was still a storm lurking under that calm and assured surface.  He seemed okay with sharing personal things about himself…or at least he was with Draco, which had too many implications for Draco to think about too hard just yet.

 

He wore power like a cloak, but he didn't flaunt it – it was just there.  He wasn't ambitious in the usual ways – socio-political power, position, wealth – but there was definitely a thirst in him to always be better, stronger, more capable.

 

(Draco had briefly wondered what might have happened if Potter would have been sorted into Slytherin instead; how having that ambition encouraged would have changed him.  But then he realised what would have happened would have been Potter getting killed in his sleep by one of the other Slytherins who had actually supported the Dark Lord.  Or at the very least Snape having an aneurysm over being required to mentor Potter.)

 

The man had been hurt by the Dark Arts – repeatedly – and he knew better than most why knowledge of them was extremely dangerous.  But he also understood that lack of knowledge of them could be equally dangerous.

 

(Like the dehydration curse that had been cast on him and almost killed him.  Like the curse that had killed Matron Dempsey, who had been surrounded by Aurors who wanted to help but didn't know how.)

 

Draco could tell that Potter was starting to get frustrated over what he believed was fruitless research.

 

(What Potter didn't know was that the last week Draco had instead been researching him.  And that research had been very fruitful.)

 

So Draco made a decision.  Tossing the fistful of powder into his fireplace, he sought out an old friend.

 

 

.o0O0o.

 

Bright and early Friday morning, Draco leaned against his desk as he waited for Potter to arrive.  He hadn't bothered setting out any books, ready to give up that façade.  His stomach was full of nerves, but he was certain in his decision.

 

When Potter got there, Draco intercepted him at the door. He took the customary drinks out of Potter's hands and set them on his desk before shuffling the other man back out.  It wouldn't be prudent to have much caffeine beforehand, but they would probably benefit from the sugar afterward.

 

"Come with me," Draco commanded, locking his office door and walking quickly down the hall.

 

Potter jogged to catch up, a puzzled frown on his face.  "Where?"

 

"To get real answers."  Draco knew it was vague, but was thankful Potter understood the seriousness in his voice enough to keep quiet and follow along.

 

Ducking into a semi-hidden stone archway, Draco led them into a small courtyard with a fountain just loud enough to mask quiet conversation.  He felt a rush of approval at the way Potter's magic instinctively poked at the spells Draco had laid to make this place ignored by the general populace.  He turned to face Potter and was met with a grim – but expectant – expression.

 

"After the war, the Ministry sought to eradicate all knowledge of the Dark Arts in the naïve view that if they destroyed the books they found that they would destroy that knowledge.  But there are hundreds, thousands – likely millions – of tomes that they'll never get their hands on.  Maybe they're hidden, or being kept somewhere outside of Britain.  Not to mention they'll never be able to counter the word-of-mouth teachings that families often pass down."  He spoke like he was lecturing his students – all calmness and facts.

 

"There are those, however, who felt that the secrets of the Dark Arts were better off being protected than indiscriminately destroyed."  He tried to ignore the way Potter stiffened, the suspicious look on his face.  "These individuals had all been hurt by the Dark Arts in some way, many of them deeply traumatised.  They all knew what horrors could be wrought with that knowledge in the wrong hands.  But they also knew that by possessing that same knowledge they could better protect themselves – and others – from being hurt.  They could find ways to block, counter, or deflect spells that could kill, maim, or otherwise harm them."

 

He let Potter digest that for a moment.  He still looks apprehensive, but there was a thoughtful gleam in his eye.  Draco continued, "It would be too dangerous to freely give this information.  But, in certain circumstances or when absolutely necessary, that knowledge could be released."

 

Potter took a deep breath before he spoke, seeming to pick his words carefully.  "And you have access to this information."  It wasn't a question, but Draco gave an affirmative dip of his head.  "You can tell me what I'm dealing with in this case?"

 

"Yes and no."  Draco locked his eyes with Potter's, hoping to convey how serious this was.  Then again, telling a Vice Head Auror that you have access to a large amount of illegal magical knowledge should have been a big tip.  "I have access to this information.  And I'm offering that to you as well."

 

Potter froze as if faced with a predator about to strike.  He narrowed his eyes and just stared for several moments.  Finally, he carefully asked, "Why?"

 

"Because I know you would only use it to help people," Draco said simply.  It was the truth, and Draco could tell Potter was surprised to have it stated so plainly.

 

Potter went silent for a few long minutes, staring at the stones of the fountain as if they were a canvas for his thoughts.  Draco did his best to give him time to digest the information and decide, despite the fact that his guts felt all twisted up on the inside and his heart was hammering.

 

Finally, Potter's eyes flicked up to his.  Draco knew the answer just from the startling intensity of his gaze.  "What is required of me in return?" Potter asked lowly, the rest of his face stoic and immovable.

 

Draco gave him a small, genuine smile, glad that he understood that there was a price.  "Silence and secrecy…sworn in blood."

 

 

.o0O0o.

 

Harry struggled with the idea presented to him.  He had been taught ever since he'd first heard about it that Blood Magic was illegal and Dark.  In the DMLE Academy, he had learned many of the ways that it could go incredibly wrong.  He'd also been taught some of the horrible and twisted uses people had come up with.  Nightmares had plagued him after that module, many of which featured his fourteen-year-old self chained to a headstone with blood dripping down his arm.

 

He had to fight not to brush his fingers over where he still had a scar from Pettigrew's dull knife.

 

But, his mind supplied, Blood Magic was intended to be utilised much differently.  He remembered reading that the original uses had been much more peaceful and mundane –bonding ceremonies (such as marriages and adoptions), tracking spells, peace treaties, and oaths of office.  It was supposed to be more manageable than an Unbreakable Vow and could be reversed by the casters if necessary.  The limits and consequences of breaking a pact sworn in blood were definable by the casters, as well.

 

He would want to know the exact specifications of the spell before he would actually participate, but part of him knew that his mind was already made up.  It had been since Malfoy had said why he was offering Harry the chance.  He nodded to the other man where he stood placidly, giving Harry his space.  "I accept."

 

Malfoy smiled again, looking relieved.  Harry didn't have much of a chance to appreciate the expression before he gripped the hand Malfoy offered tightly, bracing himself for Side-Along Apparition.  It wasn't as bad as Floo Network travel or Portkeys, but it still tended to leave him unsteady.  He felt the brief sensation of being tugged and squeezed as they spun, then blinked his eyes in the dimmer lighting of the entrance to a library.

 

He was still trying to get his eyes to adjust from being in the sun so that he could see down the rows when he heard a light clacking noise coming from above.  Sandaled feet and the edge of robes became visible tapping down a tight spiral staircase that led to a loft above where he and Malfoy were standing.  Harry snuck a glance over at Malfoy, who looked like he was vacillating between boredom and amusement as he watched the figure descend.

 

When he returned his attention to the figure, Harry was surprised to come face to face with Pansy Parkinson as she stepped free of the spiral.  She smiled at him coyly, though the side of her mouth pulled oddly due to the large, deep scar that ran along the right side of her face.  The eye was a lighter colour on that side, but Harry knew that sometimes the sight could still be magically restored.  With the way she focussed right on him, either it had happened recently or she could still see.

 

"Hello, Potter.  Did I frighten you?" she asked playfully, chuckling as she reached out to swat Malfoy on the shoulder.  He scowled at her and flicked her back, making Harry wonder if this was an ongoing thing.

 

"Not at all, though I certainly wasn't expecting you," he said truthfully.  He wondered how she had gotten the scar, bad enough that it couldn't be healed, when he remembered Malfoy's words from earlier.  Everyone here has been hurt by the Dark Arts in some way.  If that scar was what was left behind, Harry wasn't certain he wanted to know what had happened.

 

"A lot has changed over the past decade," she said enigmatically.  Malfoy rolled his eyes at her and she shrugged back at him, then motioned for them to follow her.  She cracked open the large tome she'd been holding as she walked, balancing it against herself at what Harry considered an odd height.  "I am the current head of this society," she announced, "and normally I would be the one to undergo the blood bond needed to swear you in."

 

She set the tome down on a pedestal near where a small ritual area had been set up.  "However, given the circumstances…"  She smirked and parted her outer robes enough for Harry to see the reason she'd been carrying the book awkwardly: she was heavily pregnant.  "It isn't a good idea to undergo any type of serious magics that would affect my body."  She swept the robes back into place and went to sit on the stool behind the pedestal.

 

"Draco, however, is quite high in the hierarchy, though he patently refuses to lead–"

 

"I am too busy with my studies to deal with keeping track of you lot," Draco interrupted grumpily.

 

Parkinson just smiled with all of her teeth, a wicked look even without the scar's distortion.  "To continue: since Draco was the one to speak for you, he will be the one to bond you in.  It doesn't really matter which of us does it, as you'll be connected to and able to recognise every member of the society through the bond.  However, it does tend to lower or abolish certain barriers between people, making it easier to confide and trust, and that will be a bit stronger toward the person you undergo the ritual with."

 

"You'll be able to ask any member of the society for help should you need it, and they'll assist you if they can," Malfoy added helpfully.

 

"I'm sure you have questions," Parkinson said, not even bothering to make it a query.

 

Harry nodded.  "What are the consequences of talking about it to outsiders, intentional or not?  Can it be reversed?  And what exactly is expected of me?"  He ticked off his main concerns on his fingers as he asked.

 

"It cannot be broken unless you agree to be Obliviated of any and all knowledge you've gained via the society.  And since that can be tricky, it is highly ill-advised," Parkinson warned.  "And you won't have the ability to speak about the society to anyone who is not already a member, much like with a Fidelius Charm.  You can know the information, but you'll get tongue-tied and stutter if you try to speak it; your hand will spasm or cramp if you try to write it or use sign language; your body will spasm or flail if you try to pantomime it – yes, we thought of that," she said with a grin.

 

"How was Malfoy able to talk about it, if the bond makes you unable to?"

 

"Think of it like a Secret Keeper for a Fidelius Charm.  Only, in this instance, he was only given permission to tell you about the society itself.  He wouldn't have been able to give you any other information."  She grinned, her eyes flicking to Malfoy just in time for him to roll his, earning him another swat to his shoulder.  "As the leader, I can give or revoke permission for certain knowledge to be shared with outsiders – it's more than just a title, in this case.

 

"Other limitations include Pensieve memories, which will not be able to be viewed by an outsider.  The bond will also create a built-in barrier within your mind that should go unnoticed by anyone attempting Legilimancy, and is very difficult to break if they do somehow detect it."

 

Harry nodded along with each item, not finding any fault.  It made sense that people who had been hurt by the Dark Arts probably wouldn't make it a point to have limitations that would harm their members, especially if it could happen by accident, like saying something in front of an eavesdropper.  If Harry ever started to mistakenly mention information he wasn't allowed to reveal, he'd just look like a tongue-tied klutz.  If he were perfectly honest with himself, people probably wouldn't even think there was anything amiss.

 

He noticed Parkinson was waiting for him to digest that before continuing.  He dipped his head once to let her know she could go on.

 

"Now, for what you'll need to do.  While we'd appreciate a copy of any Dark Arts information you come across to add to our network, we do understand that sometimes that is not possible."  She shrugged delicately.  "Every little bit helps.  We have people from all walks of life amongst us, from booksellers to Curse-breakers, and we try to keep an eye out.  I myself work for a private firm as a Curse-breaker, when not laden with my husband's spawn."  The wicked grin was back, but from the contented hand she ran over her bulge Harry could tell she wasn't at all unhappy about her predicament.

 

"As much as I'd love to demand to know every scrap that the Ministry keeps locked up, none of us would ever actually ask that of you, I swear," she said seriously, the corners of her mouth pulling down.  "But whatever we do know, we can work to understand and hopefully counteract.  For example, one of our fellows who works as a researcher thinks he might have even found a key to creating a shield that can withstand the Killing Curse.  It's just the very tip of the iceberg, but one day maybe it will be developed into something that could keep people alive."

 

Harry's breath caught at that, as he was sure she knew it would.  Ever since Voldemort's reign the Unforgivables had become sickeningly popular.  Thankfully, most wizards lacked the ability to cast them correctly.  Even so, they'd lost three Aurors just that year to successfully cast Killing Curses.

 

"Right then.  How do we do this?" he asked gravely, eyes flicking warily to the ritual table.

 

Parkinson let out a happy noise that Harry was smart enough to not call a squeal, even in his own mind, as she finished flipping through the tome to the correct page.  She motioned him over to let him read over the spell.  "I'll say it for you to repeat during the ritual, but some people do better with the pronunciation when they can visualise what they're supposed to be saying."

 

Harry followed Malfoy over to stand on opposite sides of a small altar table with a basin and two sharp-looking knives.  He had to close his eyes for a moment to push back the image of himself chained to a headstone, to remind himself that this was entirely different and that he had chosen this.  Malfoy had a concerned look on his face when Harry opened his eyes, but didn't ask when Harry shook his head.

 

Parkinson instructed them to pick up the knives and repeat the first part of the spell.  A shallow cut across the left palm, and then the next part of the incantation.  An identical cut across the right palm, then recite the third portion.  Then they had to press their hands together, left to left and right to right, twining their arms around each other over the basin to do so.  The last portion of the spell was spoken as the mixed blood began to drip into the waiting receptacle.  The bowl began to glow a soft blue, and then thin golden cords sprung up to wrap around the joined hands.  Harry would have thought it was pretty in a surreal way if his palms weren't smarting from the cuts.

 

"Relax," Parkinson said soothingly, making Harry realise the fast, shallow pace of his breathing and his tight grip on Malfoy's hands.  He reined himself in with a sheepish grimace.  "You'll feel a warmth gradually spreading from the cuts to the rest of your body.  It's normal; it either goes away or you get used to it after a few days – since it's a perceptual alteration and your body heat doesn't actually change we can't be entirely certain which is truer.  You'll feel a slight twist in your mind where the Occlumency barrier is taking hold.  Feel free to prod at it to your heart's content, but be warned it'll be tender for a little while, like a piercing."

 

Or a tattoo, Harry's mind provided unhelpfully.  He was not going there, thank you very much.  He had a feeling these two wouldn't find that thought any more amusing than he did.

 

"If you look around, you'll start to see some of the magical markers we use here to find certain sections.  If you come back another time I can teach you how to identify them and set your own markers for if you'd like to save a place somewhere during research."  Harry turned his head to blink at the delicately twisting lines of light near the ceiling that led off in every which direction.  "For now, though, you'll likely feel a bit drained.  I have a stack of books Draco requested last night for you two to take back to his office."

 

When the little golden strands finally disappeared, the basin was spotlessly clean once again.  There wasn't a speck of blood on either of them, from what Harry could see.  The cuts on his hands were almost completely healed, but if he turned them just the right way he could swear he saw tiny bits of gold light forming what looked like stitches.

 

 

.o0O0o.

 

When they got back to the office, Harry's legs felt enough like jelly that he just flopped into his usual chair and sprawled.  Malfoy mumbled a reheating charm and wordlessly handed Harry his drink, cocking an eyebrow.  Harry laughed, feeling odd and almost drunk with familiarity.  The action shouldn't seem so normal after just two weeks, but it just…did.

 

The research went much easier that day, possibly because the books they had were infinitely more helpful.  They were able to fully identify three spells that were used, and figure out the family group of compulsions that some others had come from.  Interestingly, a lot of Dark Magic curses were extreme modifications of ordinary spells or permutations of similar effects.

 

By three o'clock, Malfoy was nudging Harry and telling him he should go home early.  "You look like you're fading fast, and I wouldn't want to be blamed if you managed to Splinch yourself on the way home."

 

Harry finally agreed when he began to wonder if he couldn't Apparate if Malfoy would take Harry home with him.  He felt overly warm and his mind was a little muzzy, sleepiness creeping in on him as if he'd spent the afternoon at a pub instead of Malfoy's office.

 

Despite their progress, their piecemeal information only went to show that the killer had a decent library on hand.  Harry vaguely recalled Malfoy promising that he'd look into it to see if there were any known books or sets of books that contained all of the spells.

 

By the time Harry stumbled into his flat, he was barely able to strip out of his clothes and stumble into bed before he was sound asleep.  Despite the vivid dreams, it was the best sleep he'd gotten in months.

 

 

.o0O0o.

 

Flashes of dream still painted themselves across Harry's closed eyes as he woke up panting with a hand around his cock for the third night in a row.  He'd admit that he had begun to appreciate how fit Malfoy had gotten over the years – and it was a lot easier to do so now that they'd grown out of their animosity – but he hadn't even seen the bloke for two days.  And here Harry was, having all manner of inappropriate dreams all weekend that made him worry about looking Malfoy in the eye when he was due at the Scholar's office later that morning.

 

Especially if he had to stare at the really sturdy-looking desk in Malfoy's office, that had also been present in a few of those dreams.

 

He'd spent much of his days off lazily poking at the curious fold the bond had left in his mind, intrigued at how he could trace every line and contour of it.  The information he'd gleaned while searching through those books with Malfoy had neatly tucked itself there, and it coated every tendril of thought that spider-webbed out from that point to touch on various other ideas in his mind.

 

The bond had calmed down over the weekend after he'd gotten some sleep, as promised.  There was still a pleasantly warm thrum there in his veins whenever he thought about it, but it wasn't as overwhelming as that first day.  He felt like there was something reaching out of him and touching people he couldn't see, and that they were reaching out to embrace him as well.

 

It kind of felt a little like he'd never be alone again, which was a bit disconcerting for him.  Loneliness had always been a bit of a constant for him, but he'd felt it especially the past few years.  It was different when he'd been growing up lonely because he really was alone and had never had anyone.  In school he'd been put on a pedestal instead of ostracised – usually – but at least he'd had his friends.  However, recent years had found Ron and Hermione getting more wrapped up in work and kids, along with many of their other friends, and he'd never begrudge them that happiness.  None of his own relationships had panned out so well, always finding something missing and parting ways.

 

Teddy had been a constant for the first couple of hectic years after the war, but he'd eventually started attending primary school and playing children's league sport.  At least for now Harry got to see him most weekends and at every one of his games.  He didn't even want to think about the next year when Teddy would be going off to Hogwarts, and then Harry would get to be with him even less.

 

For a moment, the image of Malfoy keeping him company instead during all of that free time popped into his mind.  He quickly doused that vision, snorting at himself for his own idiocy.  Maybe they could get on as friends after this, but Harry sincerely doubted that Malfoy would do anything but laugh if he found out about Harry's attraction.  He made a quick note to himself to very vaguely inquire about the dreams when he got to Malfoy's office, wanting to know if it was a normal side effect or…just him and his attraction.  But first, he had to put the thoughts from his mind as he went about his morning ablutions.

 

 

.o0O0o.

 

By the time he'd stopped by his office to collect any mail or new evidence and made his way to the university, Harry had completely forgotten to ask Malfoy about the dreams.

 

From the moment he'd entered Malfoy's office, he had felt like he was enjoying a lazy, warm summer day outside.  His robes felt just shy of too hot.  It was an odd thing, as the office was usually quite cool.  Harry wondered if perhaps the charms on the building were malfunctioning, since Malfoy seemed a bit overheated as well.

 

A drop of sweat rolling down Malfoy's neck from behind his ear had Harry wanting to lean over the desk and trace the path with his tongue.  Luckily he could blame his flush on the temperature.  A moment later, he caught sight of a spell that could possibly account for the latest murder and his attention was swept entirely away from his companion.

 

 

.o0O0o.

 

Five days later, Harry woke up feeling like he was on fire.  All he could think of was to get to Malfoy's office as quickly as he possibly could and find out what was happening to him.  Malfoy had said that he would sometimes be there on the weekends when he had nothing better to do, as he actually enjoyed his personal research.  Harry prayed this had been a particularly boring Saturday and that he'd easily find the Scholar.

 

Throwing on enough random pieces of clothing to look halfway decent, he Apparated as close as he could get and ran the rest of the way down the hall to Malfoy's office.  He flung open the door without knocking, momentarily relieved to see that the other man was indeed there, sprawled in his desk chair.  That was until he noticed that Malfoy was in a very similar state: skin flushed, clothes rumpled, and his first few buttons undone in an attempt to cool down.

 

A bead of sweat tracked its way down to the peak of Malfoy's collarbone visible through his open collar.  This time, Harry didn't hesitate.  He crossed the room in a few quick strides and greedily traced the path back up Draco's throat, making the other man gasp.  The sound quickly turned into a moan, Draco's fingers coming up to tangle in Harry's hair and hold him right there.

 

Harry licked and bit at what he could reach, barely able to contain a helpless whimper at the taste that met his tongue.  Salt and Draco's unique musk flooded his mouth, leaving him desperate for more.  He tugged Draco's shirt to the side in order to bite down on one pale shoulder, certain to leave bruises.

 

Draco obviously approved of this, given the sounds he was making.  His hands left Harry's hair only to scrabble frantically at his robes and shirt, popping buttons and yanking it off as best as he could.  Harry felt that it was only fair to return the favour, pulling back enough to yank Draco's shirts over his head.  When they were both free, Harry didn't have a chance to soak in the view before Draco wrapped a hand behind Harry's neck and hauled him into a kiss.

 

It was more of a mashing of lips, at first – painful, but satisfying – but gradually the desperation waned enough for Harry to pull back a little.  He tilted his head to lock their mouths together properly, tongues tangling against one another as they panted from the heat.  There wasn't anything so organised as a battle for dominance, but more of a constant quest to taste and tease at every corner of each other's mouths.

 

Draco's fingers scraping over Harry's chest startled him into action again.  He grabbed Draco's hips and yanked him up by his belt loops, pulling him out of the chair.  The lack of belt made it easy to slide his hands into the back of Draco's trousers, cupping and squeezing his arse.  Harry groaned his approval and pulled Draco closer to grind their hips together.  Draco broke the kiss and cried out, hitching his long legs a little further apart to get closer.  Harry took that opportunity to latch onto the other side of Draco's neck, sucking another mark into his pale skin.

 

Draco's hands clutched at Harry as he ground their hips together, but it wasn't enough.  He worked his hand between them to pull at the fastenings closing Harry's fly.  He whimpered every time his fingers were dislodged, but cried out every time he succeeded in undoing a button.  Soon enough, Harry's trousers were falling, followed quickly by the pants that were impatiently pushed out of the way.

 

Harry cried out as Draco's hand quickly wrapped around his freed cock.  Long, slim fingers twisted and pulled as Draco's other hand slid into his hair to tug him back into a kiss.  Turning them sharply, he backed Draco up against the desk and pinned him there with his hips so that Harry could use his hands.  He was less coordinated, but he managed to pull enough of the buttons free to shove Draco's trousers down, nearly ripping the delicate material.  Harry gasped aloud when the next push of his hips met bare skin, having not really noticed Draco's lack of underwear when he'd been palming his arse cheeks.

 

Yanking Draco's legs up and around his waist, Harry lifted him so that he could turn and slam him against the wall.  His fingers skimmed down and brushed over Draco's entrance, eliciting a pained whimpered as he teased.  "We don't…don't have…any–" Draco cut off with a cry as Harry bit his throat in frustration.

 

"S'okay," Harry growled, shifting to line his cock up with Draco's before pressing them together with one hand.  He felt a tremor race though his legs at the sensation, but just planted his feet more firmly to keep them both up.  He rocked his hips against Draco's, crying out at the sensation of Draco's soft skin rubbing against him.

 

Draco let out a low whine, hefting himself up the wall to better wrap his legs around Harry's waist.  He threw his head back, letting Harry control the pace for a moment as he caught his breath.  Harry nosed up his exposed throat, too close to the wall to turn his head and bite again.

 

"So good, so fucking good," Draco panted, fingers digging into Harry's shoulders.  He rolled his hips forward to match the next thrust, which prompted Harry to stop holding back and thrust harder.

 

The motion wasn't enough, though, and Harry's hand was too rough against their sensitive flesh.  Draco dislodged it and dragged the palm up to his mouth to messily coat it with his tongue as Harry nuzzled and kissed the side of his face.  A spike of lust shot through him at the taste and smell of their arousal mixed with a trace of the recognisable lotion Draco had recommended.  Finally, the need to be touched outweighed Draco's intent laving and he pressed the hand back down to wrap around them both.

 

Harry groaned loudly, immediately twisting his grip and pumping them together.  He palmed the heads so the extra slick mixed with their precome to ease the way further.  Draco's heels dug into Harry's lower back when he hitched him higher, grinding up as his hand moved over them.  Using the wall as leverage to keep them up, he slid the fingers of his other hand back over Draco's heated arse to dip and tease and press at his opening.

 

Draco keened, his nails scraping over Harry's shoulders as he came.  Harry pressed him against the wall harder as his back bowed, their chests so tight together that it was hard to breathe.  Draco shook with the aftershocks of his orgasm as Harry raced to follow, the broken whimpers finally sending him over the edge as Draco held him tightly.

 

When he felt like he could breathe again, Harry nosed along Draco's jaw until their mouths met.  The kiss was slow, languid – just the barest hints of the furious passion of before sparking with every swipe of a tongue.  Harry was half afraid to fully open his eyes and really look at Draco.  His glasses had been knocked off somewhere along the way, but he was undoubtedly close enough to finally figure out just what colour Draco's eyes were.

 

Fatigue and cramps finally caused them to adjust their position, Draco's legs carefully lowering to the floor as Harry held him up.  A moment of awkwardness bubbled up as they stood there looking at one another with hands idly brushing over arms and waists.  But then Harry leaned forward to gently rub his nose against Draco's, kissing him sweetly until he drew out a smile.

 

 

.o0O0o.

 

Throwing open the doors of the library, Draco stormed in with Harry hot on his heels.  "Pansy!" he snarled loudly, glancing around their immediate area for the curling blue line that would lead to her among the stacks.  He really was not in the mood to hunt her down, but he would if he had to.

 

Pansy saved him the trouble by stepping out from behind a smaller shelf to their left, raising an irritated eyebrow at him.  He knew she was a moment from scolding him for yelling in the library, but he was in no frame of mind for that.  He had a bone to pick with her first.

 

"What did you do to the bond?" he demanded.

 

Pansy snorted inelegantly, snapping shut the book in her hand.  "I didn't do anything to it, Draco.  Why would I?" she asked with a baleful stare.

 

"You were the only other one there, and you had set up the ritual area," he grumbled.

 

"Darling, that's how could I, not why would I," she said with fond annoyance.  "Now, why is it you've come in here to bellow at me undeservedly?"

 

Draco huffed, knowing her well enough to know she spoke the truth.  "There have been…side effects, that we are certain were caused by the bond.  However, I have overseen the bonding ceremony several times and done it twice before, and this has never occurred.  You are the one who designed the ritual.  What happened?" he said through gritted teeth.

 

Pansy frowned and took a moment to look him over, likely taking note of his disarray, before her eyes flicked over to Harry to do the same.  Then, much to Draco's consternation, she doubled over laughing.  He glared stonily at his so-called friend, masking his confusion at her reaction.  He could feel Harry practically vibrating in anger next to him and snuck a look over at his stormy expression.

 

He was struck with wondering when the other man had become 'Harry' to him instead of 'Potter.'  Likely when he was grinding my naked arse into a wall, his mind supplied helpfully.  He scowled a bit harder at himself for a moment before Pansy sobered up and brought his ire back to her.

 

Still grinning like a madwoman, Pansy explained.  "I told you that the bond lowers mental barriers between people, and that it's strongest between the two people who participate in it.  For most, it fosters a feeling of closeness and trust.  For the two of you, apparently, there was a bit more hidden by those barriers."  She broke into a quiet chuckle, eyes shining with wicked glee.  "In an attempt to resolve the issue and bring you as close as you wanted to be, the bond must have heightened the mental and physical urgency."

 

Draco chanced a look over at Harry, seeing that the only part of him not frozen like a statue was the blush creeping over his skin.  Draco felt himself flush slightly, clearing his throat and opening his mouth to ask…something.  Anything.  Whatever could be said to break the awkward moment.

 

Harry found his voice first, albeit shakily.  "So you're saying that we…we both…uh…"  His hand motioned between them uselessly.  "We–"

 

"Yes, yes.  You apparently wanted in each other's pants quite badly, and possibly more so as time went on," she said cheekily, obviously enjoying their discomfort.  Draco wanted to hate her for it but knew he'd have been the same way if the situations were reversed.  "Now, get out of my library.  You reek of sex."  She flapped her hands at them in a shooing motion, cackling to herself as she did so.

 

Embarrassed and still a little shell-shocked, Draco snagged Harry's sleeve and Apparated them away.

 

 

.o0O0o.

 

The walk back to Draco's office from the hidden courtyard was unnervingly silent, making every scrape of a boot on the floor seem ten times louder than normal.  They settled into their usual spaces and fiddled with a few of the books for a while, despite the fact that Harry was off that day.  Several times they caught each other looking up or taking a deep breath and opening his mouth, but awkwardness had come down on them like a guillotine.  Neither of them could find the words – or the courage – to speak.

 

Until eventually, Harry slid his foot to gently rest beside Draco's under the desk.  Biting the inside of his lip, Draco lightly pressed back.  They didn't actually speak, but they would catch each other sneaking occasional peeks at one another under the guise of focussing on their research, small smiles ticking at the corners of their mouths.

 

Harry didn't leave until several hours later, and only because he was supposed to have a late lunch with Ron and Hermione before picking Teddy up for a night.  Draco walked him to the door, pausing for a moment to ponder a kiss before they both lost their nerve and shook hands as usual.

 

Draco slid down the door after he shut it, hiding his reddened face in his hands and laughing in near-manic joy.  Harry shoved his hands in the pockets of his wrinkled trousers and couldn't keep the cheek-aching grin off his face as he walked to the Apparition point.

 

 

.o0O0o.

 

After holing himself away in his office all weekend, Draco was overjoyed when they finished their research by the following Thursday.  Only two of the spells were well-known, the rest considered as experimental.  The mechanism that caused them to work was a time-release spell that would create a so-called 'incubation period' of six days, during which the curses would sink into the victims' nervous systems.  Once the timer was up, they would trigger as soon as certain conditions were met.

 

For Gavivi Emery it had obviously been entering his vaults; being in polite company – possibly including her husband – for Matron Dempsey.  They could guess that Janelle Everett's stipulation was an extended amount of time alone, possibly after an attempt to binge or purge.  The other nine followed the same pattern.

 

The time-release also meant that the killer could have initiated the curses at any point six or more days prior to the death and from any location, since there would not have been a noticeable effect.  With so many crowded public places in the Wizarding world being visited by the majority of the population at any given time, identifying the murderer that way would be impossible.

 

As disheartening as that had sounded at first, it was actually their biggest lead.  While the other spells were a concerted effort between multiple Dark wizards over many experiments, the time-release spell wrapped around them was the sole work of the pureblooded Landon family.  They had never had much in the way of socio-economic or magical power, but they had been well known as superb researchers.  The facts undeniably tied them to every single spell utilised.

 

Unfortunately, as far as anyone knew, every member of the Landon family was dead.

 

 

.o0O0o.

 

Harry growled as the dust coating the files he was leafing through made him sneeze for the umpteenth time since he'd set up camp in the records room of the Department of Magical Lineage and Records.  Not for the first time did he wish that Arthur and his team would find a way to make computers work with magic.  It would have been so much easier to do a search and click on files and icons and links.  Instead I'm ruining my back hunching over nigh-illegible documents and getting suffocated by dust.

 

His attitude had severely soured since that morning, when he'd rushed off after unthinkingly kissing Draco in celebration of their breakthrough.  At first, hiding away amidst the shelves, cabinets, and stacks of musty parchment had sounded like a great idea.  Now?  Not so much.

 

Harry was gearing up to toss his current file onto the stack of duds when a medical record caught his eye.  Some of the details were blurred to his eyes, since he hadn't requested a warrant for it yet.  But what struck him were the mention of patterned visits to St. Mungo's and a very particular set of prescriptions.  They were almost identical to the ones he remembered Hermione and Luna being prescribed for their pregnancies.  He couldn't see if the diagnosis said that this woman had been pregnant, but he could certainly infer it quite easily.

 

The reason this was interesting was because the family registry said that Audrey Landon had never had any children.  Even miscarriages were listed in the registry, since many pureblooded families considered it important information to know of those bloodlines who had difficulty carrying children to term.

 

Following a hunch, he abandoned the Landon files and took a different path: orphans or children born to single fathers, notably those who were half-bloods or Muggleborn.  The Landons had been the type to not tolerate procreation with non-purebloods, or really any child not made legitimate by marriage.  He picked the timeframe around when he supposed she would have given birth and began to scan the files.

 

He had been expecting it to take him awhile to piece together which child it could be.  Which was why he was floored when within twenty minutes he was holding the file of one Jane Landon.  There were legal reports documenting her father's attempts to gain financial aid from her mother's family and being overruled in every case.  The names of most of the judges stood out to Harry as being among those to have their credentials revoked after the war – if they hadn't died during it – for accepting bribes.

 

Benjamin Gabriel had been a Muggleborn in the same school year as Audrey Landon.  She'd attempted to quietly disown the child and cover up the pregnancy so as not to – in the eyes of her family – bring them shame.  Having the baby of a Muggleborn when she was unmarried would have been a terrible scandal, especially with whispers of Voldemort's possible return circulating.  She'd fought viciously to keep her name away from the baby, but Gabriel had apparently given his daughter the Landon name just to spite her mother.

 

Eventually the cases tapered off, and there was very little more in Jane's file after that.  She had been home-schooled, her Hogwarts letter rejected.  She'd passed some of the required tests to graduate from home-schooling, but had never taken her OWLs or NEWTs.  There were barely any medical records apart from necessary immunisations.  She was nineteen years old – just shy of twenty, really – and had no records to say she had ever left home or her father's care.

 

There was a churning feeling in Harry's stomach at that.

 

 

.o0O0o.

 

Harry didn't like using the power of his position, but he was immensely glad for it at that moment.  And that Judge Rowley had owed him one.  Even as high-priority as his case was, a normal Auror would have had a lot more hoops to jump through and a lot more proof to present before he or she could have gotten the warrants for the Gabriel townhouse and whatever could be accessed of the Landon estate.

 

After a few minutes of knocking and ringing the bell, he finally checked for traps and forcibly entered the home.  Though he'd mostly expected it, he still felt the need to swear heartily at the state of the place.  There was only a minimal amount of furniture, and it was plainly obvious that the house had been empty of occupants for years.  Still, Harry felt it was his due diligence to give at least a cursory inspection of the rest of the building.

 

The first floor held nothing but mouldering furniture and dust.  Even the kitchen was completely empty.  Sighing – and trying not to sneeze – Harry crept upstairs with his wand drawn.  A dilapidated master bedroom inhabited solely by mice, two mildewed bathrooms that didn't even have running water, and a barren room that might have once housed a little girl.  The rusted iron frame and mattress were small enough; though they didn't even have any sheets.

 

Entering the last room – an office, judging by the cheap desk in the corner – Harry felt his stomach finally drop.  Covering one wall were newspaper clippings and photographs.  The clippings were either articles or obituaries.  Every single one had a name tacked up in the middle of the cluster.  Every single one of those names ended in 'Landon.'

 

It had happened during the War years.  No mind had been paid to a pureblood family getting systematically picked apart.  So many people were dying, it wasn't like it was anything out of the ordinary.  It had probably been assumed that either they had refused Voldemort or those who had become Death Eaters had pissed him off somehow.  He tended to like to take out his frustrations on the whole family when that happened.

 

The most disturbing part of the scene was the photos.  The grossly mutilated bodies were bad enough.  But what had Harry retching was that all of the bodies had two shadows falling over them – one large and one much, much smaller.  And in one of them there was the edge of a delicate little hand swinging in and out of the picture's edge in time with the smaller shadow's movement.  There was a splatter of blood on that hand.

 

Pounding down the stairs, Harry bolted out of the front door and back into the sunlit outside world.  He doubled over with his hands on his knees, gasping for fresh air and waiting for the taste of bile to back off.  Standing on the stoop, his magic detected what felt like a grimy web slowly sluicing off of him.  It had been subtle and he hadn't picked up on it at first, but now that he was attuned to it he could feel the low-grade pulse of Dark Magic permeating every inch of that house.

 

He called in a quick notice to the department, warning the Aurors being sent to collect the evidence of the magical residue.  It would probably have a much more profound effect on someone who didn't have the magical resources that he did.

 

Heading back to the Ministry, he managed a tight smile to his secretary before locking himself in his office and making a large, bracing mug of tea.

 

 

.o0O0o.

 

Once his stomach had finally settled, Harry Floo-called Draco to let him know what he had found.  He justified it as wanting to let the Scholar know just how much he had helped, but secretly it was a bit nice to talk about it to someone he didn't have to act put-together in front of.  He still felt a bit queasy at the memory of that wall, but he couldn't let any of his Aurors see that.

 

Somehow that had led to Draco insisting on coming with him when he went to the Landon estate.  Despite his initial adamant refusal, he'd slowly been worn down as Draco pointed out the reasons why it was a good idea.  There was a barrier around the property that was set to not let anyone who wasn't part of the family by blood or marriage past it without an escort.  It was the only reason the Ministry hadn't tried to clear out the property sooner, since they had believed the Landons all dead.  Draco, however, insisted that he had a few ideas about what spells were likely used and how to break them.

 

Additionally, he'd be helpful if the doors were laced with any Dark Magic traps.

 

Reluctantly – and with a substantial amount of unease – Harry had agreed.  He'd met Draco at the university's Apparition point with a wan smile, then whisked them off to the location he'd been given.  They landed just inside the property's gates, trouser legs catching on the tall weeds.

 

The yard and gardens were in disarray from years of neglect.  In some areas the greenery had completely taken over in a tangle.  There were periodic patches of dry, brown plantlife that reminded Harry of the fact that several Landons had been found dead on the lawn.  The residual Dark Magic had apparently been strong enough to keep things from growing even over a decade later.

 

"Not even the House Elves must have survived.  They would never have let this place become so dilapidated," Draco said quietly, a scowl firmly in place.  Harry's face mirrored the expression at those words, but he wasn't entirely sure if they were angry for the same reasons.

 

Approaching the estate house, Draco set straight to work with grim determination.  The first spell he tried rebounded back onto the yard, the second had no effect, and the third caused the barrier to bubble and seethe as if angry.  It was the fourth spell that momentarily opened a rift, but he couldn't hold it long enough to tear it.  The family's Blood Magic ran deep, and he wasn't powerful enough himself to counteract it.

 

Fortunately, Harry was.  Draco turned to him with an arched eyebrow, then gently prodded at him along the bond.  It was the oddest sensation, and it awed Harry for a moment before he responded with an inexpert nudge back.  Taking it as permission, Draco slid an idea along the connection that detailed the spell he'd just attempted.  "I wouldn't normally recommend learning spells this way, but we're a bit pinched for time," he explained.

 

Harry blinked as he digested the information, which was more than just the incantation and wand movements.  There was a sensory memory attached to it, how the casting should make him feel as he did it.  Almost like a sixth sense there was also the sensation on how it should tug on his magic.  It was strangely intimate in a way Harry hadn't expected.  Swallowing heavily, Harry nodded and turned his attention to the barrier.  Draco stepped behind him and gripped Harry's shoulders firmly, anchoring him for the spell.

 

Harry was grateful for it a moment later, when he channelled the energy necessary to rip the spell to tattered shreds of old magic.  A rolling boom sounded across the property, like the loudest crackling thunder Harry had ever heard.  Following right in its wake was a shockwave like a miniature, concentrated earthquake emanating from the very foundations.  The doors shook and the stone creaked, and Harry was certain he'd heard at least two windows shatter somewhere.  He and Draco managed to brace themselves against each for the few seconds it took to subside.

 

"Well, I suppose they know someone's here now," Harry muttered to himself.

 

"Guess that means we don't have to knock," Draco quipped back.

 

Harry turned to him and raised his eyebrows.  "We?"

 

Draco raised a single unimpressed eyebrow back at him.  "Yes."

 

"No, Draco.  You are not trained for this sort of situation; I am.  This part?  Is my job.  I can't put you in that danger just to tag along," Harry said seriously.

 

"First off, fuck you for assuming that I can't handle myself just because I took a cushy desk job.  I just have better self-preservation instincts than you.  Second, you can go ahead and try to walk in there alone, but I'd think you might know better by now that I'm not just going to sit here and twiddle my thumbs.  I am not nearly that patient.  Third, it will even the odds.  There are two of them with an unknown amount of power and skill as well as a terrifying knowledge of the Dark Arts, and I'm not letting you step into that situation without backup regardless of how powerful you might be."  His jaw had clenched and eyes narrowed, daring Harry to argue.

 

Hiking his glasses up to pinch the bridge of his nose, Harry gave a pained sigh.  "Fine," he growled out.  "But you stay behind me."  A brief thought skittered across his mind about how a month ago he probably wouldn't have been as comfortable with Draco Malfoy at his back, but he waved it away quickly.

 

"That?  I will not argue with," Draco retorted in strained amusement.

 

Once inside, Harry felt the same grimy web of Dark Magic try to cocoon around him as had been present at the Gabriel townhouse.  He paused as Draco stiffened and shuddered it off, nodding when Draco did little more than make an unpleasant face.  The magic was much more potent here – and much more recent.  Harry could pick out two distinct magical signatures, though both were a little splintered from rebounded Dark Arts damage.  He did a quick comparison to what he'd gotten from the crime scenes and matched it to one of the two.  "It's definitely them," he confirmed to Draco in a murmur.

 

Draco nodded, then flicked out a spell that lit the two signatures up in a similar way to what Harry had seen lining the stacks of the library.  "Can only we see that?" Harry asked curiously.

 

Draco nodded curtly, then took note of Harry's tone and smirked at him.  "Perhaps I can be persuaded to teach it to you later," he suggested smugly.

 

Harry rolled his eyes and tried not to give Draco the satisfaction of a returned grin.  Following along the sickly, pulsing light that coloured the two signatures with Draco creeping behind him, Harry felt his adrenaline start to rise.  Maybe it was a little wrong, but times like these were the reason that he didn't want to give up field work entirely quite yet.

 

The light finally led them up a flight of stairs and into a decrepit old study.  The path that Harry had recognised kept going through another doorway, but the other led straight to an older man looking out a back window.  He spooked and turned when they stepped into the room, quickly schooling his features into an unimpressed frown.  Benjamin Gabriel was only in his late thirties, but the toll that the Dark Arts had taken on him made him look much older than that.

 

Squaring his shoulders, Harry began the necessary arrest spiel informing the man of his rights.  He knew that it was useless, but he didn't want to risk causing a problem for the case by not giving the perpetrators a chance to give up peacefully.  It was a rule meant to keep Aurors with a penchant for aggression from resorting to violence unless they'd already been attacked, though it could be quite annoying at times.

 

When Harry finished, Gabriel just curled his lip in disdain.  "Jane!" he snarled out angrily, his eyes trained malevolently on Harry and Draco.

 

Instead of running in through one of the doorways, she caught them by surprise when she burst out of a cabinet that had a hole in the back of it leading to the next room over.  Harry barely managed his first Protego before the beginning of her immediate assault reached them.  Mentally reviewing the room, he realised they were in a terrible position – in the middle of a nearly empty room with nothing to use for cover.  They might have planned that, he thought with a sinking feeling.

 

Despite Harry's previous reservations about bringing Draco along, he breathed a mental sigh of relief when he proved to be decently proficient at helping fend off the frenzied attack.  He wasn't certain about how long it would take her to tire out, but for the moment she was spitting out incantations faster than he could catch.  Alternating, he and Draco were able to block, counter, or deflect the majority of them, narrowly evading only a handful of times.  However, Draco was beginning to sweat with exertion under the onslaught.

 

Training kicking in, Harry remembered that splitting up would create a wider target area and she would be much more strained to keep attacking them both.  It might give them a chance to restrain her.  A curse managed to singe the outside of his sleeve as he finally figured out how to shove the idea along the bond at Draco.

 

Draco flinched slightly, but recovered quickly to hiss out an affirmative.  He dashed to the right and back toward their entry door, while Harry rolled neatly to the left to provide a smaller target and a height disparity to affect their opponent's aim.  He caught a glimpse of Gabriel standing off to the side, but he seemed content for the moment to simply watch the proceedings with a bored look.

 

Dragging his full attention back to Jane, he realised that instead of dividing her attention she had simply oriented entirely on Draco.  Draco, who was a pureblood of decent social standing, with more than a few nasty ideals in his past.  Who Harry had merely been standing next to during the concentrated assault.  Fuck.

 

Swearing vividly, Harry raised his wand to fire at her unprotected flank.  In that moment, however, her father must have decided to intervene.  Thick arms wrapped around Harry's neck and shoulders as he threw his substantial weight onto Harry's back.  Luckily, he had little to no training with physical attacks and hadn't thought to use his wand.  Harry still forgot to go for his wand first occasionally – a product of being raised by Muggles, he presumed – but he had the benefit of receiving a considerable amount of hand-to-hand training as an Auror.

 

Harry shrugged the older man off easily, throwing his elbow back hard enough to bust his nose and knock him out.  Unfortunately, he turned back just in time to see Jane finally overwhelm Draco.  He fell with a strangled scream, his wand going limp in his hand as he clutched at his head.

 

 

.o0O0o.

 

Draco felt the cocktail of curses slam into him half a second before he could finish casting the charm to shield himself.  She hadn't bothered to lace it with a time release like she had for all of the others, which he supposed was due to the fact that it would incapacitate him immediately and he'd no longer be able to fight her.

 

Idly, he wondered if this was what it felt like when the Dark Magic had ripped into the others when the timer went up.  As if a giant beast has gathered me in its jaws and is somehow gnashing at me from the inside out.

 

And then he couldn't wonder anymore.  He couldn't think.  Everything started to become jumbled.  He tried to remember what he knew about the Dark Arts in an attempt to save himself, but all of his knowledge seemed to bubble up to the surface and then pop into useless air, like a pint of ale steadily going flat.  When he realised that knowledge was becoming jumbled with everything else, he uselessly attempted to shove it back down and away from his consciousness.

 

Vaguely, he saw through his fingers – why are they on my face? – that the red-black-green-help-man had somehow thrown-shoved-flung-blasted the blue-brown-harm-woman back into a wall.  He couldn't coordinate himself enough to react to it, even if he could have remembered how he should have been reacting to it.  Everything buzzed and grated and swam as information lacking in context floated through his mind.

 

His mind had been his everything since the War ended, and now– who-what-where am I?  He couldn't remember, himself or anything about the mess of clashing colours in front of him.  It seemed to turn to him and he panicked.

 

It's looking at me!  It's looking at me!  Hurt-pain-ow-stop-no, I can't.  I won't.  Can't hurt me.  Not if I do first.  I'll hurt first – me? it? – yes, then it can't hurt me, yes.  No?  Wait, hurry, no.  I can't?

 

Something touched an arm – my arm? – and wrapped around it.  Scrabbling for the smooth-wood-sweet-power, he screamed from somewhere and let whatever fluttered into his mind slip out from there as well.

 

 

.o0O0o.

 

After he had flung Jane into the wall with a burst of magic that wasn't so much a spell as a manifestation of his panic, Harry raced over to Draco to see what he could do.  The spells weren't contagious – that much he knew – so he felt no qualms about gently latching onto Draco's right forearm to see if he was still okay.

 

Except then Draco had screamed and started trying to cast spells at him.

 

Realising the danger, Harry quickly tried to pin Draco's left arm as it flailed and flung spells in every direction.  Some were harmless, like the healing charm cast at the wall and the spell that tinted Harry's glasses a hideous shade of pink that he hadn't bothered trying to dodge.  However, Harry also recognised much more dangerous spells randomly intermixed with them, such as one that would have slowly stripped all of the flesh off of his arm had it hit.  Silently he thanked every ounce of his luck that Draco had never taken up wandless magic or he'd be in a lot more trouble than just trying to avoid one wand.

 

Despite Harry's best efforts at subduing the slighter man, Draco continuously managed to squirm and jerk out of his grasp with mindless strength.  Growing more and more distressed as they struggled on, Harry wished for something he could use to get through to Draco – and then it hit him.  The bond!  If he could use it to reach Draco's mind he might be able to DO something. I have to do something.  I have to save him, he thought frantically.

 

With one last desperate move, Harry threw his full weight down on top of the other man and finally managed to slam his wrist to the ground.  "For what it's worth, I'm sorry for this.  It's probably very taboo," Harry apologised as he concentrated enough to push along that odd pathway their bond had created.  What Harry saw there horrified him, a swirling chaos of unidentifiable hues viciously attacking the silvery swirling of Draco's mind.  Not really certain what to do and not wanting to accidentally damage Draco himself, Harry tried to use what he'd learned of Occlumency to build careful barriers between the two.

 

Closing himself in on the side of Draco's mind, Harry tried valiantly to avoid touching any of the wispy memories and looked back at the mess of curses.  Carefully extending his barriers, he tried to trap them into smaller boxes that he could counteract individually.  It took a lot of focus, and he worried that Draco would throw him off or that either of the killers could wake.  He persevered, breathing a sigh of relief that he hadn't needed to attempt wading into Draco's mind to retrieve additional spell information.

 

When he finally pulled back from the mess, he was sweating.  Draco seemed to have passed out, which worried Harry but also relieved him because it meant he wasn't throwing around random spells.  A small movement in his peripheral vision caught his attention.  He quickly spun in a crouch over Draco to see Jane simply staring at them, her eyes flicking back and forth blankly.

 

"You're Harry Potter," she said in a painfully childlike voice.  Her slack features twisted into a small moue of confusion.  "Daddy said you saved us from them, because they were evil."  Her eyes flicking back and forth faster, her confusion began to morph into panic and horror.  "Oh…oh no.  If you save them from us now, does that make us the horrible ones?" she gasped quietly, her eyes brimming over with tears as a choked sob escaped.  Before Harry could even respond, she had turned her wand on herself and blasted her own throat open.  Dark, reddish-black blood arced out from the wound as her heart beat its last, then began creeping outward from her in a viscous pool.

 

Harry just stared in shock with his mouth still open from whatever response he would have given, pity and revulsion warring in his stomach.  Draco reclaimed his attention as he began to stir back into consciousness.  Harry turned Draco's cheek in the other direction, not wanting him to see the sickening splatter across the wall.  When he finally opened his eyes and began to focus, Harry gave him a small, reassuring smile.

 

Suddenly, Draco lunged up and freed his wand arm, firing a spell that just barely whizzed past Harry's ear.

 

 

.o0O0o.

 

Draco narrowed his eyes as Benjamin Gabriel collapsed and knocked into his foot.  He'd glimpsed the movement over Harry's shoulder and reacted out of reflex.  He let himself collapse back with a groan, rubbing his aching head.  He huffed a quiet laugh when Harry slumped forward to rest his head on Draco's chest with a short, hysterical chuckle.

 

"You just scared the fuck out of me," Harry panted out, muffled by Draco's shirt.

 

"I should certainly hope not.  I've heard the Italians consider thirteen to be a lucky number.  I might take that up, but it sort of requires me to get lucky," Draco drawled back.

 

Harry snorted at him, which Draco graciously ignored.  They stayed like that for a few moments longer before Harry took a deep breath and sat up.  Draco watched curiously as he pulled a small device from his pocket and contacted the DMLE to send a clean-up team.  Assuming Harry had subdued the girl while he was unconscious, Draco tried to see where she was – only to have Harry reach down and turn his chin firmly away despite being distracted.  Draco rolled his eyes and complied, for the moment.

 

His head still felt a bit in disarray, so he viciously focussed instead on cleaning up the remnants of the curses.  He felt a bit lightheaded as Harry helped him up and allowed himself to be manhandled over to the single tatty couch along the wall.  He got a quick glimpse at what had happened to Jane before resolutely turning his face away.  Diagrams in books, okay; pictures in files, less so; that much blood in real life, no thank you.

 

He pouted after he heard Harry sigh fondly and replace Draco's not-quite-legal binding spell with a regulation one.  He had liked his version much better.  It squeezed.  That charlatan deserved it after what he and his spawn had put Draco and his whatever-Harry-was-to-him through.  As well as the people they had actually managed to murder, if he was coming up with reasons why that bastard deserved it and much worse.

 

Swallowing heavily, Draco felt the enormity of what had just happened slowly begin to sink in.  He carefully controlled his breathing in an attempt to stave off a panic attack, very much like the ones he had often suffered from in the years immediately following the war.  He hid the tremors in his hands by tucking them into the sleeves of his robes when the Aurors finally showed up, content to let Harry deal with them.

 

Watching Harry work as an authority figure did prove to be a pleasant distraction.  Draco played up his dazedness to the other Aurors so that they would leave him alone to watch.  He knew he'd have to deal with the trauma at some point, but he would prefer to have alcohol, comfort food, and his bed on hand when that occurred.  For now, he would amuse himself with wicked ideas brought on by Harry's Vice Head Auror tone.  Usually Draco preferred to be the bossy one and those ridiculous red robes would still have to go, but honestly he wouldn't mind letting Harry order him around a little so long as he used that tone.

 

A familiar presence brought Draco out of his reverie, and he gave a tiny tip of his head to one of the members of the DMLE's Evidence Acquisitions Crew.  Harry cocked his head at Draco with a confused frown before following his line of sight.  He had to cough to cover an inappropriate laugh as he walked over to stand by Draco.  "Of course one of yours would be here to help clear out all of these old, extremely rare Dark Arts books," he mused so only Draco could hear him.

 

"Ours, now," Draco replied cheekily.  "And of course."  He rolled his eyes and attempted a grin.  It was weak, but it would do for now.

 

Once the prisoner and the body had been removed from the premises, Harry offered to be the one to remain and help gather the dangerous paraphernalia.  Before he could get any odd looks, he added an excuse.  "Scholar Malfoy should definitely see a Healer after what he's gone through today.  I feel responsible for his injuries and want to be able to escort him to ensure his safety.  He does seem quite a bit out of it still, so it is probably for the best to not try to move him just yet."

 

The others smiled and nodded in immediate acceptance, shaking Harry's hand or clapping his shoulder as they filed out.  Draco decided he was definitely going to find out just when Potter had become such a Slytherin.  In the meantime, he had to concentrate on looking loopy and trying not to laugh as Harry expertly hustled any stragglers out until it was just the two of them and Acquirer Nina remaining.

 

 

.o0O0o.

 

It had taken four hours between the three of them, but Acquirer Nina finally had a handful of trunks carefully packed with Dark Arts items to transport back to the evidence lab.  There was a second set of trunks shrunken into one of her hidden pockets full of copies of the majority of the library.  She and Draco had also 'accidentally misplaced' a few of the tomes before they were noted down in the catalogue of objects, as they were magical themselves and unable to be copied.  (Harry had pretended to be oblivious on the other side of the room, making Draco snicker each time.)

 

The Ministry's property inspectors would be by later to gather any of the salvageable mundane objects for auction.  The house had technically been confiscated by the state years ago, but they hadn't wanted to waste resources on getting into the house when they were certain no one else would be able to as well.  Additionally, it was a crime scene now and officially under Ministry jurisdiction anyway.

 

As they parted ways – Nina to the EAC lab, Harry and Draco to St. Mungo's – Draco nudged Harry in the side with his elbow.  "So, since I got hurt because of you—"

 

Harry scoffed, cutting him off.  "You got hurt because you were being an idiot and insisted on coming with me."

 

Carrying on as if he hadn't been interrupted, Draco continued, "—I demand that you nurse me back to health.  I demand blowjobs twice a week and being fucked into the mattress daily as my treatment."  He paused for a moment, then magnanimously added, "All right, I can accept every other day, if necessary."

 

Harry's face flushed at Draco's boldness, but he grinned slyly back at him anyway.  "And what if I said that I'm not a Healer?" he asked smugly.

 

"Good.  You won't start blathering on about that pesky Healer-Patient nonsense," Draco quipped back.

 

"You're still going to see an actual Healer first, you know," Harry said with a look of smug satisfaction.

  
Draco made a face that had Harry laughing.  So Draco shut him up with his mouth.

 

 

**Fin?**

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